Steps and tips for designing cards?

I've seen plenty of card designs and I've designed cards to say that the most important thing is communicating the information you need to the player.

I know that's a broad statement, so I'll try and break it down.

Text: Text must be clear and simple. The color of the text needs to contrast well to the background so it can be read. For example, if you use black text, make sure it's on a background of some white, whether it be straight white or off-white or a white box overlay over your art or just a white outer glow (Photoshop term) to the text.

In addition, text needs to be large enough to read. 10 point is ok, but going any smaller is not recommended (even though many Japanese TCGs do this liberally).

Adding flavor text should be secondary...or even tertiary. The most important is the functionality. What good is the flavor text if you can't understand what the card does in the first place?

-Symbolism: If you use symbols to represent certain things, it is recommended that they represent the action or element effectively. Personally, I start with clip art of something and modify it in Photoshop. I use the "Keep It Simple Stupid" theory, not making them too complicated because it can really be hard to read on the card level.

As far as usage, too much can confuse players...see reviews for Race for the Galaxy.

-Layout: Laying out your card (graphic design) can take many many different forms, but keep the following things in mind: 1) Americans typically read from left to right, top to bottom. Decide what information is the most important and make sure the player can easily access it. Things like "type" or "class" may not be as important as "card title" or "resource cost". And certainly flavor text, like I said before is not pertinent information, so maybe put that in a place that can fill some negative space.

-Look at other cards/mechanics from other games: You want to give a different look to your game, but many TCG/LCG/CCG games have the same card format. Try looking to other card games like 7 Wonders, Race for the Galaxy, etc. for inspiration on how they layout their cards. Do cards have to be a portrait layout? Does a card have to "tap"? Can it just be flipped over? What about positioning on the board? Can that indicate something?

Card design is crucial. There's a thread on color here, use color to your advantage. It's easily recognized when it's crappy (coughYuGiOhcough) and admired in good games (7 wonders).

I hope this helps.

I don't like 3 but 1 and 2 look fine

I got 2 questions about your layout:

1) How important is faction to your gameplay?
2) How important is region to gameplay?

Knowing these things will help figure out your layout.

I thought I replied but I guess I forgot to save it. *facepalm*

My suggestion is to use Google Docs if you aren't already, and list all of your cards and info on a spreadsheet or database. This helps with balancing because you can create formulas based on the info to help determine costs.

For instance, in my game I have a lot of variables that go into someone ultimately earning points. To balance the ways to get points, I created an abstract "score" for each of my items that I call an "effort" score, then I edit my variables until the "effort" required to get them is proportional to the VPs they could earn, if that makes any sense.